SOUTH BEND Spell the plural of moose. True or false, Jesus told parables about the kingdom of God. How many strings does a bass guitar have? These were just some of the questions given recently to celebrity participants at Holy Cross School's "Are You Smarter Than a Holy Cross Fifth-Grader? And you have merely got started if you correctly answered moose, true and four. Having some fun with it while facing a full house in the large Holy Cross Elementary School auditorium were Silver Hawks owner Joe Kernan, St. Joseph County Sheriff Frank Canarecci, Sgt. Chris Boros, crime intelligence officer of the South Bend Police Department, and Derek Dieter, 1st District councilman and South Bend police officer. With Holy Cross graduate and current St. Joseph's High School Assistant Principal Marty Harshman serving as host, each celebrity took a turn to the delight of a large crowd of students, parents and teachers. Signs read "quiet" and "applause," while questions appeared on a big screen for all to see. "This is terrific," Canarecci said. "It shows you how brilliant some of these fifth-graders are. With the questions they composed themselves, they really impressed me." Former South Bend mayor and Indiana governor Kernan enjoyed returning to his alma mater, where he attended 50 years ago. "It was good to be back here where I went to school just to see all the progress on the playground," he said, referring to ongoing construction at the school. "You find out pretty quickly that there's a lot of stuff you either forgot or didn't know in the first place," added Kernan in between conversations and handshakes. Like the other participants, the smiling Kernan clearly had fun with it, even though after a good run with little help, he missed the million-dollar question: When did Neil Armstrong land on the moon? (July 20, 1969). "I thought the questions were great," he said. "There were a couple that other guys got that I was glad I didn't get." Dieter could not make such a statement. He missed his first question as did the student who could save him. So the officer left as he entered ---- to a large swarm of low-fives from the students. His colleague in the South Bend Police Department, Boros, certainly did better and enjoyed it. "I thought it was a tremendous amount of fun," he said. "It's just amazing how smart these children are." Canarecci may have had the best line: "I went through fifth grade three times," he said at the outset. But having prepared by watching the actual Fox TV show, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" a few times helped, he said. "My wife made sure I watched it." he said. "So I knew about the peek, the copy and the save." He also wisely started with questions of students lower than a fifth-grade level. For the contestants, it was a chance to show public servants are human, too. "It shows more of a personal side of the police department," Boros said. "Kids are finding out that police officers are approachable and people in government are approachable," Canarecci said. The idea was the brainchild of fifth-grade teacher Melissa Scott with assistance from fellow fifth-grade teacher Jode Szymarek. "I was sitting around one night and thinking I had a great group of fifth-graders and we just figured we could pull this show off with the great group that we had," she said. It could not have gone better, both teachers agreed. "They were so excited with it," said Szymarek of the students. "And they came together, and it was just so much fun and they really got into it." The students, both in the crowd and those in the fifth grade wearing their bright tie-dye T-shirts, obviously enjoyed it. "I wrote the pretty easy first-grade ones that they almost messed up on," Casey Coleman, a fifth-grader, said. "It's pretty fun, especially on the easy questions to us that were pretty hard for them." Fellow fifth-grader Jackie Ridenour agreed. "I thought it was really fun," she said. "I didn't think we could pull it off but we did." After each contestant concluded their effort, Harshman would ask them, "Are you smarter than a Holy Cross fifth-grader?" And each readily answered no. The contestants agreed on one sentiment expressed by Boros. "Some of those questions are actually fairly tough," he said.Staff writer Jim Meenan: jmeenan@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6342